Only Baseball Prospectus Can Fix It

Take a look at you, sitting there as if baseball is gone. Baseball by no means leaves! It simply form of hovers there by the exit after claiming it was going to go away, shifting with purposeful slowness towards the door and turning to say “What was that?” upon the utterance of something approaching its title.

“We didn’t say something,” you reply.

“Ah,” baseball says, then fingers the blinds a bit and mumbles about how darkish it’s getting.

Then it simply hangs round for some time, all winter. It lives within the Arizona Fall League and the Dominican Winter League and the Premier12 match. It lives within the commerce rumors and prospect lists and more and more tragic Scott Boras puns. It lives within the mixture websites; a military of rats racing throughout keyboards to churn out obscure headlines on shitty articles that hyperlink out to a Jon Heyman tweet about groups “surveying the market.”

And it lives right here at Baseball Prospectus, the place writing like this piece exists solely sometimes. A lot of it’s analytic and clever; considerate and shifting; in-depth and on-the-scene. Articles like this one are like opening your coat closet and getting attacked by a chicken: Rare. Aggressive. And requiring nice resolve with a purpose to emerge unscathed.

As a result of regardless of how a lot of the web’s finest baseball content material BP publishes, from the PECOTA projections that everybody positively remembers getting the Yankees precisely proper and is apologizing on social media for doubting, to the BP Annual you’re in all probability about to pre-order, a few of you simply might not be satisfied {that a} subscription to this web site is in your finest curiosity.

And what this text will now do is inform you all the causes that you’re unsuitable.

Baseball is altering, and it’s scary.

I’m positive all of us recall the change that ruined that baseball. Positive, folks sat there and located a technique to take pleasure in themselves after it had come, however the gamers have been pissed and even a former legend, safely retired years earlier than, weighed in on the brand new model of the sport, claiming his taking part in profession wouldn’t have been practically as lengthy if he’d needed to play underneath such tyranny.

“Night time ball,” Crimson Sox supervisor Joe Cronin stated, “has made it totally unimaginable to check nice gamers of right now with the celebs of the pre-light period.”

That’s proper, you thought I used to be speaking in regards to the “Golden At-bat,” however I used to be speaking about baseball at night time. That legend I discussed? Babe Ruth. Fairly a twist, mm? Don’t you’re feeling foolish, panicking about change, after I’ve so expertly proven you that historical past repeats itself and that we in the end settle for each change baseball throws at us, regardless of how deranged the present commissioner could also be?

That’s the sort of contemporary take you may anticipate from articles like this, which once more, I guarantee you might be exceedingly uncommon.

Change. Isn’t it terrible? Regardless of exquisitely crafted literary parallels, we right here within the generally referred-to post-light period have additionally not been saved from baseball’s hideous sweeping modifications, like making gamers depart their lodgings after sunset. Keep in mind once they determined to chop down on catcher obliterations, inventing a poorly outlined rule that no person knew how one can implement? Positive, ultimately all of it simply acquired shrugged away because it at all times does. And sure, the variety of catchers who’ve been bodily or emotionally harmed by Scott Cousins because the Posey Rule went into impact has dropped to zero. However now Rob Manfred desires to maintain including enjoyable little Instagram filters to the sport you’re keen on.

Have you ever heard in regards to the “Golden At-Bat” rule Manfred talked about? In fact you probably did, it’s all anyone’s complaining about. You don’t need that! However how will folks know you don’t need that? Good luck getting your passionate cries heard over the wailing of virginal Nazis on Twitter and the self-congratulations of its alternate options.

We right here at Baseball Prospectus are listening. You’ll want stewards into baseball’s twisted future, a human protect of disposable nerds between you and the madman Rob Manfred.

Have you ever ever thought-about how baseball will look in 5 years? Ten? MLB charging you broadcast charges by the out? A high prospect tearing an ACL doing a Savannah Bananas dance which is now required throughout all of minor-league baseball? Scott Boras’ barely functioning physique being pushed out in a hover chair to ship a press convention of pun-filled zingers in entrance of the final residing Christmas tree?

Be sincere. Are you emotionally ready for this? Hell, you aren’t emotionally ready for January. If solely there have been a baseball outlet that would seem from the darkness with a torch and take you by the hand.

Baseball isn’t altering, and it’s scary

Right here’s one other horrifying thought: What if baseball doesn’t change? What if it’s this gloomy mess of caked-on tobacco spit eternally, with half of it making an attempt to take itself aside and construct again cheaper and extra effectively, and the opposite half simply dumping cash right into a furnace in an try and turn into the game’s new god-king?

Then there’s groups threatening to go away city and getting the go-ahead from their 29 finest pals to take action whereas all of us stand right here yelling, “Don’t!”

“The way forward for baseball appears to be a vivid one,” learn one newspaper in 1937. “For it’s a good sport.”

Nicely, fairly a bit in regards to the sport has modified since 1937, that means that someplace alongside the road, it went from “good” to Rob Manfred scribbling down new rule concepts on his hand after winking at a server to convey one other spherical of mimosas.

However after all, how they outlined “good” in 1937 was additionally completely different in ways in which we received’t even be touching right here, however everyone knows the sorts of causes I imply. The racial ones. In addition to all the different normalized atrocities that have been part of on a regular basis life earlier than we acquired the web to calm all people down.

I suppose the conclusion is that baseball, like the whole lot, is at all times altering. It’s not itself a residing organism, nevertheless it’s made up of them, and because the world evolves, baseball is dragged alongside, typically unwillingly, into the present period. What we imagine will make it higher or worse doesn’t actually issue into it, as a result of all Manfred has to do is get us speaking after which, effectively, his job is completed. The strategic dump of his newest brainstorming session with individuals who don’t like baseball might be part of another, greater, dumber plan that may in the end make the league extra worthwhile for the mewling billionaires who sit atop it. Now, we’re going to spend just a few days speaking about it, debating it, discovering new angles on it; mainly doing the market analysis Manfred wants to realize knowledge on the idea. All of the whereas it’s normalized into the lexicon and years from now, when the 14th-seed Phillies convey a 37-year-old Bryce Harper out to win a playoff sport, we’ll all watch him clobber a house run that will get referred to as again after it collides with a drone promoting homicide hornet repellent and shrug like he simply took ball two.

No fan response has ever stopped a commissioner from doing one thing they actually needed to do, so how essential are your reactions, anyway?

Right here at Baseball Prospectus? Crucial. Why do you suppose we nonetheless have a remark part? As a result of we like being corrected, screamed at, or advised that somebody is canceling their subscription on account of an article having an excessive amount of cursing in it (Once more, so uncommon)? No, as a result of baseball is a group, and whereas Rob Manfred can’t hear your complaints from his workplace that I assume is adorned with useless animals he didn’t kill, we will hear you. We’ll hear you. We take pleasure in listening to you.

As a result of that’s what a group is: An article about baseball, adopted by 5 to seven feedback about that article, a few of that are geared toward one another or about one other matter completely.

Baseball Prospectus: We’re higher than baseball.

I’m actually simply scared, largely? 

Oh proper, I forgot in regards to the name and response format. Have you ever tried medication and alcohol? Sure? Nicely, then there’s nonetheless yet one more choice: A subscription to Baseball Prospectus.

All that point you used to spend doom scrolling? Spend it right here studying about beforehand unearthed statistical gems from 2024, a breakdown of bounce-back candidates for the next season, or a prolonged, intensely-researched profile of a participant who died on at the present time 100 years in the past.

Lose your self in publish after publish worthy of your eyeballs. Hell, perhaps you’ll even discover an internship with the Crimson Sox that modifications the course of your life.

“And the way did you hear about this place?” they’ll ask at your interview.

“I examine it on Baseball Prospectus!” you’ll reply.

“‘Baseball Perspective?’” they’ll ask.

“No,” you’ll say, considering much less of them. “Prospectus.”

“Oh, you imply that web site with all of the cursing?”

“No, I imply the location with the award-winning baseball protection and yearly launched e-book protecting each crew and participant within the sport!”

“Hmm, seems like they’ve a paywall,” your interviewer will mumble disgustedly as they have a look at their laptop computer. “That’s a disgrace, and completely remarkable at the moment.”

“That’s wealthy, coming from the crew that paid Pablo Sandoval $90 million!” you’ll reply with a wink.

“We’ll be in contact,” they’ll say, shuffling some papers in a method that makes it clear they won’t be in contact.

Nicely, you blew that interview. We will’t show you how to there. However you by no means know which BP posting goes to alter your life. That one didn’t, however you solely have your self responsible. Why would you right somebody who was interviewing you? You’ll study rapidly that when any individual says “Baseball Perspective” it’s simpler to only smile and nod.

A part of overcoming worry is ignoring it completely, and BP is right here that will help you try this within the years forward. Your worry could also be coming from what you’ll lose or who shall be damage and in these moments, there may be little extra to do than flip to these whom you belief to carry you up. Likelihood is, you may have these folks. And within the baseball world, you may have us.

We’re right here to decipher, talk about, and demand higher from baseball, at the same time as we all know, deep in our souls, that baseball completely won’t take heed to us. It will change, and we’re going to hate it. It’s going to be performed and we’re going to find it irresistible. Gamers will say irredeemably dumb issues, commissioners will make guidelines we don’t like, managers will shield gamers who don’t deserve it.

However there shall be sluggish Sunday afternoon video games when three gamers collide on a pop-up. There shall be no-hitters taken late into video games and ruined by utility infielders. There shall be playoff darlings hard-charging into the whirling blades of the postseason. There shall be pitchers who made changes within the spring and by accident invented a brand new sort of pitch. There shall be eye-bulging stat columns and international substances on hats and malfunctioning robotic umpires and the identical advert performed with such intense repetition your mind will come to think about it as your pulse.

Regardless of the a number of apocalypses descending concurrently on the stadium, there would be the sport. And Baseball Prospectus shall be right here to speak about it with you.

As a result of once more, baseball by no means actually leaves.

“Did you say one thing?” baseball asks, now exterior ready for an Uber. It’s cupping its palms towards the window with a purpose to see inside.

“No,” you reply, closing the blinds, and return to studying Baseball Prospectus.

“Ugh, a paywall?!” baseball will complain, peeking by means of a sliver within the blinds.